


Paralyzed

by StainedWhite (Precious_Little_Stardust)



Category: Naruto
Genre: ANGST OKAY, Angst, Canon Compliant, Depression, For the most part, Gen, Ghosts?, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Or Schizophrenia?, Suicidal Thoughts, definitely not a fix it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22122910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Precious_Little_Stardust/pseuds/StainedWhite
Summary: He is five when he sees his first ghost.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Maito Gai | Might Guy, Hatake Kakashi & Namikaze Minato, Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Kushina
Comments: 8
Kudos: 118





	Paralyzed

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, just. You clicked on this and I have nothing else to add but pls listen to the songs "Ghost" by Jacob Lee and "Paralyzed" by NF - both fitting the setting and general idea?  
> Also, if those warnings in the tags didn't stop you already: It gets very bad and I'm very sorry.
> 
> This is Gen and Minato is /concerned/, /worried/. He loves Kakashi, as in: his only child (at this point).
> 
> Have fun! (I say, while crying nervously)

Minato found his students freezing to death in a small cave somewhere far off in Snow Country. 

Kakashi isn’t entirely sure how he even found them without using most of his chakra up but doesn’t ask, either.   
It isn’t exactly his biggest priority with him having caught pneumonia during a fight with some asshole in the snow. Rin had been crying the entire time and Obito called him stupid for being such a reckless ass. 

Kakashi still isn’t sure if it could be called reckless when you’re fighting for your life here but he took the insult about as well as he took everything from Obito. 

With a grunt, unworthy of a response. 

It’s a bit hard focusing on making a fire with barely any chakra left but he’s a master in being self sufficient, having lived by himself since he’s 5. It comes almost natural to make another fire in another cave by the end of the week when Minato stumbles into their little hide-out, snow clinging to his frozen features.   
Kakashi hadn’t anticipated anyone and his slowing reflexes are showing how much he’s affected by pneumonia but he still manages to knock his sensei off his feet and hold a kunai to his neck. 

It’s sensei’s hiraishin-kunai, the one he got for his Jounin-promotion. 

Sensei blinks up at him with a serious expression, probably taking in what little is left of his prodigy-student. He hasn’t eaten in seven days, barely able to keep the water down when he is awake and Rin and Obito don’t know how to hunt for bunnies. Well, they do, but nothing grows here so they are useless with their average noses and average hunting skills, Kakashi thinks bitterly.   
He can’t say he is hungry but it would’ve helped him, probably, to have a bit of food on him. 

Startled by a sudden hug, Kakashi finds himself in sensei’s embrace. “Thank god, Kakashi …”, he hears Minato’s breath coming out in fast gulps, like he is hyperventilating on the fact that Kakashi is still alive? “You’re not …” 

Kakashi nods and hears Obito snicker somewhere far away behind them before both Rin and his Uchiha-teammate come up to them to greet their sensei. 

Kakashi squirms because he does not want to get his sensei infected and it’s … it’s not like he deserves this embrace now? He has been gone for so long and the village is probably destroyed thanks to his stupidity … everyone died because of him. 

“How’s-“, he starts and begins to cough, embarrassing himself with how he tries to gulp in air and almost topples over on his Hokage. 

Minato takes out a small bottle of water after steadying him. “You need to drink something, Kashi-kun …”, he says. “The village is fine now. Kushina is back home, you know? She tried to come with me but I told her that she can’t just walk across the continent in her condition. It took some time and she finally agreed - … god, if I’d known I’ll find you like this, I’d have dragged Tsunade with me …” 

Kakashi snorts. “Needs to save people” is all he can squeeze out between some breaths of cold air. “I’ll be fine.” 

Obito is crouching on their side now and Rin is touching Kakashi’s back gently. “I’ll put some of the cream on your back later. It’s made out of eucalyptus with some other ingredients. My grandmother gave it to me for our last trip here”, she says, gently rubbing small circles on his back before taking one of his arms and pulling him off of sensei. “It’s important that we get back home soon. How’s the hiraishin doing, sensei?” 

Minato looks at all of them, rather calm but still a bit shaken up. Kakashi notices the black circles beneath his eyes, the gaunt cheeks, the exhaustion radiating off of him.   
“No way you can do another one all the way back home …”, he concludes and finds himself wondering how his sensei caught chakra exhaustion when he’s usually so good at keeping his chakra in check. 

Minato nods, slowly, looking to the side guiltily. “I overused it when I was looking for you. I went to every country but I couldn’t get a good grip on your seal … something must’ve happened …”, he finally volunteers. “Now we’ll take the slow route back. You’ll recover and I’ll find shelter in a village for us.”

Kakashi nods, slowly. Chills run down his spine when he’s about to agree verbally and his hands start shaking violently. He’s so, _so_ cold, he really just wants to go home … 

“Kushina misses you, she really does”, Minato whispers when he takes Kakashi up easily. He closes his eyes against the easy familiar warmth and buries his nose in the green flak vest. 

There are more blankets now, and he gets forced to drink more water before he falls unconscious with Rin still rubbing small circles on his bare back. 

  
______  
  


  
He’s five when he sees his first ghost. 

It’s his father, sitting in the spot he used to be sitting in on the kitchen table, apparently waiting for breakfast. 

Kakashi doesn’t scream and thinks that this must be normal. He visited the Mental Health class in the academy, he knows about PTSD and how people can hallucinate after traumatic events.   
He wouldn’t say finding his dad in a puddle of his own blood on the tatami mats in his office was especially traumatizing but he also still has nightmares about it, even though it happened more than 2 months ago. Maybe his mind is a bit sensitive. 

He decides he doesn’t need breakfast today and leaves for training before his classes start. 

When he comes back home that night, already half forgotten about the incident in the morning, he barely holds back said scream this time when his father is still sitting in the kitchen with the lights on. He turned them off, he knows this, he turned them off! He turned off the lights so it can’t be a hallucination— 

“I’m hungry”, his father - no, not-fahher, or is he? - whispers. He quickly thinks of a genjutsu but who would cast one upon him? He dispels it anyway even though the lone figure in front of the empty table is still there when he opens his eyes.   
White mane in a messy pony tail, eyes as dead to Kakashi as they have been before he had killed himself. He looks so much like the late White Fang but Kakashi - … no. He is just hallucinating, right? No way he is seeing ghosts. It’s not possible. Ghosts don’t exist.   
If it’s not a genjutsu, neither is his mind making up things and if there are no ghosts in this world, he really doesn’t know what else this trick of the light could be. 

There is a bit of silence when Kakashi just stares and Sakumo looks at him pointedly.

“Aren’t you going to cook dinner?” 

Kakashi shakes himself out of the rigidity, spell unbroken. He walks over to the kitchen cabinets and looks at the contents. 

Nothing, as expected, because he hasn’t been really hungry lately. Nothing his dad would like anyway. He could cook a soup, maybe make some rice on the side. 

He tries to find a lone box of rice he stored somewhere behind dishes but comes up empty and decides he’ll forgo eating and skip right to tea. 

“You should be eating more”, Sakumo says behind him but Kakashi clenches his fists before he stands up to climb up on the kitchen counter to find the tea he can smell in one of the cabinets. It’s green tea with some other spices mixed in and it’s somewhere.   
He finds it hiding behind a bottle of sake and gets down to fill up a kettle to cook the water with. 

There’s silence when he turns around and sits down with his father. He looks at the wooden table, stares at a crack in it. “Why did you kill yourself?”, he asks, finding himself horrified that he tries to engage into a conversation with his dead father. He doesn’t exactly hate Sakumo but it’s kind of difficult to deal with when you’re the son of a traitor and said traitor leaves your ass behind to go off to the next world or something. How is he supposed to pick up the pieces? He’s five. 

He doesn’t look up, though. Only clenches his fists under the table, waiting for the kettle to go off - and it does, eventually.   
When he gets up, Sakumo has disappeared. He still finds two mugs and cleans them out before he puts the tea mix in. “Figured”, he sighs and sets the tea down. 

Both mugs are empty when he comes into the kitchen the next morning. 

  
______  
  
  


When he graduates the academy, he notices too many dead people in the ranks of villagers who applaud him.   
He thinks that, maybe, it’s the light, or a genjutsu. But dispelling it doesn't help. He knows the lady shaking his hand - Nohara Rin's mother, if he isn’t mistaken - died weeks prior to this. He knows because this lady has the same easy smile, the same clan markings, and he knows she really is dead because her hand feels cold to the touch and Rin had been found crying in the school grounds when she had been told about her mother’s passing. 

He blinks but all those dead people are still surrounding him, gratulating him on his achievements. Shunshining away, he decides that it can’t be just his dead father apparently. Ghosts are swarming this village and no one even notices. 

Later, he realizes that he’s willingly said “ghosts” for the first time. 

  
______

  
  
He’s six when Minato-sensei finds out about Sakumo. 

It’s also a bit more complicated than that. 

Ever since Minato took him on as a student, he insisted on Kakashi living with him. At first, it was because he couldn’t believe Kakashi could actually take care of himself. Given his malnourished state at the time, he understands Minato’s points but he’s been steadily getting healthier so Minato’s concerns have gotten invalid pretty fast. 

Minato just started coming home with him one day, though. Like, he just somehow moved into Kakashi’s guest-room and no one asked Kakashi for permission but he couldn’t exactly throw out his sensei, right?   
And quite frankly, Kakashi’d spent so much time with Minato-sensei lately that it was quite lonely when he went home to an empty house. 

He never said _that_ , of course, otherwise sensei would’ve gotten this stupid grin on his face. Minato never said “ _I told you so_ ” but his face always told one so. 

Usually, when Kakashi made breakfast for both of them in the morning, he always filled an extra bowl with rice and vegetables and set it in front of his father. Minato never said anything. 

It was a nice routine and it would’ve stayed that way if it hadn’t been for bird-lady. 

Bird-lady is a cute old lady who’d been sitting on one of the benches on the road leading to the monument for the better part of his short life. She had always been there and she’d always told him great stories, about her son and his wife and … well, heartwarming romances with lots of graphic content he probably shouldn’t have heard?

His father had always greeted her, so Kakashi continued on when he wasn’t there anymore. He likes feeding the birds as well, even though they got too fat and probably won't be able to live without her anymore. He told her so the first time she asked him to sit with her.   
She ignored him and told him about the great princess of Grass. 

He never thought about her much, until she started coming over to the training ground to watch him a few days a week. She sat in the shadows, surrounded by the birds and just … you know … fed them. 

He doesn’t say anything to Minato and they have their routine down. It’s not even that often anymore, that they can train so easily like in the beginning with the war getting worse and the supply missions being crucial. Even though Kakashi is still just a Genin - already on his way to Chunin-promotion, though, the last test is a few weeks away - they get send to the frontline and he’s probably seen far more ghosts than before. Sometimes he can’t tell but most times it is getting easier to read the dead. They always have this … lost sparkle in their eyes, this faint smell of otherworldy. Also, they feel different, in a way. Their chakra signatures are still there but different.   
It’s a bit creepy but he doesn’t tell anyone. 

At least not until this one mission to a village on the outskirts of Konoha. 

They are send for backup but when they get there, only hours after they got their assignment, they find the little village in ruins. Not a single living soul shows themselves.

Not even two steps into abandoned streets and they find cadavers, dead bodies, missing bodyparts, blood. Mostly civilians. There’s no shred of evidence but it’s clear who did this. 

Kakashi knows, in a way, what he would be finding when he walks into a yellow painted little farmer’s house with Minato behind him. They had been steadily working their way through the dead and filed every single occupant of this village, checking if there could be any survivors. But it had been clear from the start that they had come approximately 3 days too late for any kind of help. Funny, because this village is only about 2 hours away from Konoha.   
(Later, they find out that the Iwa shinobi who had been accountable for the deaths of those civilians had been killed an hour away from the village — it’s strange and there is no real answer but this could’ve been prevented. This one and a lot of other tragedies during the war.) 

Still, he isn’t prepared to see the dead body of Bird Lady in the living room, basically beheaded with her pate in her arm and a smile on her decaying lips. 

At first he doesn't know who screams, if it's the friendly face in front of him, Minato's, or his own unreal voice. He doesn't get a lot of thinking in, in those first few seconds.

Bird Lady was there when he left the village, she sat with him, fed the birds before he went off to his next assignment. She can’t be dead, he saw her— … and it’s when he realizes that he has been tackled into a hug by Minato-sensei, that there’s a distant sound and that there’s a distinct lack of oxygen in his lungs. 

He thinks he might pass out but he doesn’t. Instead he just stares at the scene and Minato-sensei orders the other two Chunin to take away the body. 

„She was a nice lady“, he hears himself whisper and thinks that she is still around, why is he using past tense. „She is, I mean.“ 

Minato flinches, it’s a full body one. Kakashi can feel it in his back where he is sitting in Minato’s lap with his sensei’s chest and arms embracing him. „She’s dead, Kashi-kun“, Minato says, slowly. As if Kakashi hasn’t seen how one of the Chunin took the head of Bird Lady and carried it out the door. 

He feels himself nodding, calmly turning his head with an eerie smile on his face. „I saw her, earlier. She sat with me after you went to get the scroll with the mission directives.“

Minato doesn’t say anything at first. He thinks that his sensei might be too shocked but he can’t be sure. 

„You’re seeing your dad, too, right?“

It’s Kakashi’s turn to flinch and he looks off to the side. „He sits with us at breakfast“, he volunteers and doesn’t want to think about the implications. If Minato-sensei thinks he is unstable … he might get stripped of his title, maybe even held back for his Chunin-exams. „Well, I mean … he is eating his share, so I don’t think I’m hallucinating …“, he adds quickly. 

Minato doesn’t say anything again. 

„I’m not crazy …“, Kakashi tries and turns around fully. „I … I just see ghosts for some reason! I don’t know why …“

It’s kind of disconcerting how heartbroken Minato looks but Kakashi holds his gaze, desperately trying to make his sensei believe. „Please, Minato-sensei, you know I’m not crazy … I- … I do my job, I take care of the mission, I’m responsible. Please, don’t tell anyone …“, he probably loses a bit of his dignity on the way of holding in a panic attack because now Minato-sensei knows and he’ll probably, most likely, try and get Kakashi help. Like, in a really useless parenting way. 

„I believe you, Kashi-kun“, Minato finally says. „But you need to tell me if you’re seeing dead people, okay?“

Kakashi nods because he can take this, he can do this if Minato-sensei doesn’t tell anyone. 

„Are there any here, right now?“ 

Kakashi shakes his head, finding it hard to hold in a sob of relief. „No, no, there’s no one in this village. They probably already left.“ 

He doesn’t explain why he knows of their departure and Minato doesn’t ask. They just sit there for awhile, completely embraced by silence. There’s no urgency for a few minutes, no stressed work calling for them.   
Kakashi thinks that it seemed too easy to convince Minato-sensei, that it should’ve taken longer but he doesn’t see the way Minato looks at him more often than not, like he’s the moon to his sun in a very big brother-ish way with too much love to be healthy.   
Kakashi doesn’t see those things, not the looks or the caring or the hugs and hair ruffles. 

Minato isn’t a sensei anymore, he’s like a father and only one of them knows the implications of getting too close to their student. It’s the only way he knows how to care, though, and Kakashi doesn’t question Minato, not on any step of their way. 

It’s a bit later, when they’ve probably overstepped the line with the waiting Chunin, that Kakashi murmurs: „We should probably check out the rest of the house, shouldn’t we, sensei?“ 

Minato can only nod and let go of his little charge. 

Kakashi doesn’t question the lingering touch, the way Minato held him like he needed this way more than Kakashi ever did. 

He moves to get up and scrambles to his feet without much grace. His mask is still wet and his throat still feels too tight but he starts moving anyway and ignores his bodily needs needs as he usually does.   
It never occurs to him that it might not be okay, that it isn’t just his status as child prodigy. That his genius sensei isn’t just concerned about him as a weapon. 

Kakashi gets up and walks into the kitchen to find a dead cat with a missing limb. He suddenly doesn’t want to know how messed up a human has to be to kill an animal, a dearly loved one by the size of it, too. He picks up the bloody remains and turns back. 

It’s evening by the time they are done with the counting and have all the names confirmed, 47 overall. Not a major hit to Konoha’s forces but enough civilians and their ninja spouses to assume that it happened at night at least. 

„Let’s go“, Minato-sensei says when they buried the bodies in a mass grave outside and Kakashi still sees Bird Lady’s head rolling over several limbs before coming to a stop with her face downwards into the crook of someone else’s armpit. 

She would’ve probably said something really inappropriate about it but he can’t help but feel glad that she isn’t there with them. 

They leave and get to Konoha by midnight. Minato stumbles into their home behind him and Kakashi is glad he doesn’t ask if anyone is here right now because Sakumo is waiting for them on the couch this time. Kakashi moves up the stairs to his own room before Minato can ask any questions and leaves his sensei to do whatever he does before he goes to bed. It’s later that night when he feels someone’s arms around him and smells the musky scent he missed, that he realizes how often sensei does this. Sleeping in the same bed as him when he is having another nightmare. How often Minato is just there … 

He turns and buries his nose in Minato’s shirt, clinging to his body. He doesn’t cry, only sobs a little bit when he’s sure Minato is finally asleep. 

  
______

  
Kakashi is seven and a Chunin already for over a year when Kushina moves in with them. 

Initially, it was Jiraya’s idea until it became Kushina’s, who just decided it’s time to move in with her longtime boyfriend and … well, that’s how they somehow end up in the Hatake residence without much of anyone agreeing on anything. No one bothers to ask Kakashi and he’s okay with it. 

When he’s making breakfast for everyone for the first time, Kushina sits in Sakumo’s place and it looks sort of creepy. With his father floating in and out of Kushina’s face, her momentary movements, her breathing disturbing his every ghastly fibre. His father looks mildly annoyed, whenever Kakashi can catch his visage long enough to note an expression or make out a downturned lip, a ceased eyebrow, maybe even a wrinkled nose. 

Kakashi doesn’t know what to do. He fears for his father’s ultimate disappearance if Kushina continues to sit in this place and make thinks uncomfortable. But he doesn’t want Kushina to leave? He doesn’t know what to say, how to say it. How to reason with her. Why would she change her seat when this one seems perfectly fine? He can’t just tell her to change her seat without having a perfectly sound argument ready. 

Minato shows up a minute later, takes in the picture of their little group and probably notices the small fear only visible in Kakashi’s grey orbs. He moves over, whispers something into Kushina’s ear and she immediately moves to sit down on another chair, usually occupied by Minato. Kakashi mouths a small thank you at Minato-sensei. Sensei smiles. He turns around and fills the four bowls with their usual order and hears a complaint from Kushina behind him.   
“Why aren’t we having ramen for breakfast, Kashi-kun? We should be celebrating!” 

Minato chuckles but doesn’t say anything. 

Kakashi shrugs. “It’s my house, isn’t it?” And that’s the end of it because Kushina starts chuckling behind him as well. 

When he puts down the food, Kushina looks at the small bowl of rice and vegetables briefly, before boisterously starting off to explain a fight on her last mission. Kakashi doesn’t mind her brashness, her being so extra loud. He eats his breakfast quietly, contend to listen to their bickering. He’s friends with Maito Gai after all, he knows that he’ll never get a word in anyway. 

Minato’s already done and so is Kakashi. They’re five minutes away from the training grounds and it’s still half an hour until their scheduled training starts. The mission desk doesn’t open until 8 and it’s only 6.30. 

Kushina looks at them, helping herself to another big bowl and tells them over a mouthful of rice that she’ll be attending their training today. Kakashi blinks because Kushina has never helped him train before but … he knows his sensei’s girlfriend must have many amazing jutsus she can teach him, maybe even seal-work? 

He doesn’t even notice his father’s disappearance until he gets up to clean the kitchen. 

  
______  
  


Kakashi is barely eight and he is also really annoyed. 

There’s a team waiting for them. A Team. As in, a Genin-Team. And apparently they are both a bit older than him, both only just graduated the Academy. He will have to share his sensei. His sensei. There are gonna be Team-Mates now. As in, his Teammates. Plural. 

It’s crazy. 

Kakashi thinks those people up there, they must’ve all lost their minds. 

Kakashi doesn’t need a team, he needs to become a Jounin, and fast. So he can go on missions alone with his sensei again. (Needless to say he has the skill but they won’t let him advance until he is at least 11 or 12. Suddenly age is important. What a joke, really.) 

He’s eight years old and he is so pissed. He even snapped at sensei and Kushina, even though he loves them but he couldn’t help himself. He’s so unhappy with the situation and he doesn’t like to share his Minato-sensei. What if sensei won’t like him anymore after meeting their new members? What if sensei will move in with them? What if Kushina will leave him as well? 

Maybe they’ll like those other people better? It’s not gonna be hard, being more likable than Kakashi. He’s a walking disaster and people say he’s cold and bad and his father’s legacy in a tone that implies being a legacy isn’t a good thing at all. 

He’s 8. 

He knows what most of those older shinobi mean, but he understands that he’s young, younger than many, most, maybe the youngest. Probably the youngest. He understands that people are adverse to being lead by a mere boy. 

He doesn’t understand their wrath, their anger. The looks. 

“Father, why do they hate me so much”, he whispers, sitting with his dead father at the kitchen table.   
It’s four am and his guardians - legal guardians now - are still asleep. 

His father doesn’t answer for a long time but eventually settles on, “You’re different, Kashi. They’re afraid you’ll turn on them.” 

“Shouldn’t they be nice to me? So I won’t?”, he asks, forgetting to be quiet until his voice travels out of his mouth and he clamps it shut soundly and with the grace of a young boy. Ah, I suppose this is why they are giving me a team now. 

Sakumo merely nods and looks at his tea. “You’re going to be fine, Kashi-kun. Minato loves you, Kushina does, too.” They’re not going to leave you. 

He doesn’t ask why his father left him the way he did. He has learned this lesson. It still stings.

He sighs and looks away. Away from the ghostly reflection, the shadows imprinted on his father’s face. He looks older now than he did when he died.   
Do ghosts age?   
Kakashi doesn’t know and he sometimes wishes he wouldn’t have to think about those kinds of questions. 

“I won’t like them”, he says with the finality of an eight-year-old. He says it, convinced that it will become true, convinced that he will hate those people who are both older and less advanced. It’s unfair but so is life, and he knows he will have no right to ask for a few more months. He has no right to block Minato-sensei, claim him all for himself, when Minato is a busy shinobi, with lots of fighting to do. 

He still nods to himself and gets up to clean the two tea cups.   
His father is there when he turns around and sits back down. 

They wait for sunrise and it’s the first time Kakashi notes his father’s skin differs from his own. It glows, unnaturally so, in the dark but looks awfully pale in the rising morning sun. 

Maybe ghosts really age as well.   
  


______

Kakashi hates Obito. He’s still almost eight and he hates Uchiha Obito with nothing less than a certain passion. 

He also thinks both of his teammates are probably really useless. 

The girl - Rin? - she’s always blushing when Kakashi only turns her way. It makes his skin crawl and he hates it. He really doens’t want to know what she would do if he started talking to her.   
He doesn’t like her or Obito and he lets Minato-sensei know as soon as they’re walking back home alone.   
Obito was late, half an hour late. Had they been scheduled for a time-sensitive mission, it’s possible that they would’ve failed. That’s unacceptable. There’s no failing missions in Kakashi’s standard and Minato-sensei should’ve told Obito off for not bothering to showing up on time. For his very first training-session with his new team. How can you be late for something as important as that?   
Kakashi really doesn’t want to know how Obito’s head looks from the inside. Probably empty. Or filled with lots of marshmallows. 

Kakashi doesn’t like marshmallows much and the universe is out to get him, he just knows. 

Minato-sensei doesn’t tell him off, merely asks him to give them a bit more time, it’s only been the first day. 

“You shouldn’t be so cynical, Kashi-kun. You’re seven, not 80.” 

Kakashi shrugs, unbothered by the fact that his old soul might have been showing. “It’s true, sensei, why shouldn’t I believe it? The universe is a big bad bully.” 

Minato starts laughing. 

Kakashi looks at him questioningly, trying to figure out why his sensei is laughing at him. “What, why is this so funny? I don’t think getting bullied by the universe is good. Actually, even if I tell someone, like you, there’s just nothing you can do, either. You’re human, I’m human, we’re all human and there’s nothing bigger than the universe and there’s also no one who could help me out here. Because universes don’t tend to have bigger universe-friends, you know? Otherwise I’d ask them to bully the universe.”   
It’s probably the most he has spoken in a week but his rant is worth it.   
He closes his mouth after that and grinds down on obvious nerves. His teeth are aching by the time Minato-sensei stops laughing. 

They walk back home and it’s the first time that he sees bird lady again, lounging on one of the benches placed sporadically on the way to the monument. She sat there before, a lot of times actually. 

He looks at her and moves his hand to greet her, until he remembers the rolling head, the lifeless limbs, the strange grimace.   
He blinks and she is gone but the birds are still crowding her seat, clawing at nothing but tasteless air. 

Minato-sensei takes his lifted hand in his, pats his head in quiet understanding. He lets his sensei lead them back to his father’s house. 

It’s a bit later, when they sit down to have dinner and Kakashi forgot to place a bowl in front of his father that he panics. There’s a bit of screaming involved but he manages to crawl into bed on his own with Minato-sensei placing himself right next to him and Kushina singing him to sleep. He feels worthless and bad for calling Obito names, but he can’t stop himself, can’t stop being cruel to someone who’ll end up just like his father. 

He really doesn’t want another ghost sitting at their kitchen table, waiting for him to cook something so they can stare at it all throughout breakfast and dinner. 

  
______  
  
  


It’s 10.31 and there’s a distinct lack of Gai in the fresh morning air. 

He doesn’t know why, but when - for the first time since their strange friendship began - he has to go looking for Gai and finds him in his own house; it kind of worries him.

It’s not even an unusual journey. On his way there he greets Dai at one of the houses which needed a paintjob, asks for Gai and gets a short silence until Dai decides to permanently damage his hearing. 

He thanks the big moustache-man and makes for a fast retreat. 

When he finally gets to the - annoyingly - green little cottage on the outskirts of town, he knocks, rather reluctantly for probably the first time. 

It opens just as reluctantly as Kakashi knocked on the wooden entrance, probably even more so, which is worrying in and of its own. 

There’s a beat of silence before Gai’s swollen eyes come into view. Kakashi knows something must be seriously wrong because there is no smile accompanying the small tears still streaming freely down Gai’s pink cheeks. There’s no laughter, no annoying speech of youth and springtime. Or springtime of youth.  
He blinks, confused and taken aback.   
He realizes a lot of things in this very moment: one, he has never seen Gai being sad. About anything. Two, this is a lot of water Gai’s body is losing and he would be concerned for Gai’s health if it weren’t for the crying part. Three, Gai is sad. And he really doesn’t know how to deal with a sad Gai. It’s out of his expertise, he doesn’t have social skills for this, what do you do when your best friend is crying??? 

There’s a long silence until Gai opens his door fully. And drags Kakashi in. Kakashi really doesn’t know if this is bordering abduction or if this is a friend thing - people dragging you into their houses and touching you willingly. 

He’s ten years old now and Gai, almost two years older than him, is lacking a father. 

“He sacrificed himself, Kakashi!” Gai cries and throws his arm around Kakashi’s much smaller frame. Kakashi stands, rigidly still, unmoving out of shock.   
“Who died?” He breathes, already knowing what he’s about to hear. Anticipating another bit of sanity leaving him.   
Gai just grips him harder at that. “My father” he whispers and hides his face with Kakashi’s shoulder, positively soaking Kakashi’s shirt. 

There’s a long silence. Kakashi doesn’t move.

“I-I’m sorry, Gai” he whispers after awhile, thinking back to Dai, to this morning’s short conversation right next to a crowd of people walking back from the market place to their respective homes. He thinks back to Dai’s bright smile, the sparkling teeth and the friendly hand on his shoulder. 

He thinks back to his own father, finding him out cold on the tatami mats in Sakumo’s office. The blood stains that wouldn’t go out for weeks, won’t ever come out of the wood beneath, forever staining the room. 

Kakashi struggles to breathe. 

Gai’s hands are on his face now and he thinks it’s a bit ridiculous, how his body is betraying him once again when someone he cares about needs help. Gai needs him, he can’t just pass out now. 

“Kakashi!” Gai screams and it’s loud, louder still than his father. 

There’s no air willingly filling his lungs. He coughs, wheezes and topples over, suddenly finding himself beneath a surprised and worried friend. 

“Kakashi, rival, you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re okay now” Gai screams into his ear and Kakashi nods, still trying to get air into his lungs, closing his eyes in relief when he does. 

“I-I’m sorry” He whispers, stutters and coughs a bit. “This shouldn’t be about me.” 

Gai shakes his head, eyes still wide and pupils blown from the adrenalin. It’s dazzling and Kakashi squirms beneath the much bigger form of his friend, feeling a bit uncomfortable. “You don’t have to apologize” Gai says simply, importantly. “If anything, I should be honored to have such an amazing friend by my side right now.” 

If possible, Kakashi feels even worse. “Thanks” he says and looks away with the guilt sitting deep within his gut and bones. “Gai … Are you alright?” 

It’s a good question to ask and Kakashi feels a bit of pride over the fact that he thought to ask. Even though he genuinely is interested in the answer, he doesn’t really know how to comfort a friend. Much less one who just lost his father. 

Unlike anyone else, Kakashi’s own father chose to abandon him and leave him for the village to ridicule. He doesn’t quite know how it feels to lose someone precious, who hasn’t died to redeem themselves. It seems like there’s a lot of grief in Gai’s eyes and maybe he should try and cook something? So Gai can eat. Kakashi knows for a fact that Gai loves curry about as much as he loves the color green and that says a lot. 

Drops of water fall onto his face before he can even attempt to get up. 

He must’ve spaced out again because Gai is crying above him, with closed eyes and shallow breathing, a lot of tension in those muscles. “Dad sac- … sacrificed himself …”, Gai stutters and falls over his words. It’s a bit ridiculous, the whole thing. Dai dying for Gai and all that. Kakashi isn’t sure he can bear to hear it but he has to, if he wants Gai to be okay. 

Even with his abysmal social cues, he hums, quietly. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” Because truth be told, he doesn’t know, hadn’t known before coming here.

There’s a longer pause now. Gai is thinking, remembering painful moments and reliving them inside his mind.   
Kakashi wants to take his words back, somehow. 

“It was … it was a mission, outside. We were ambushed and dad …”, Gai chokes. “He came and saved us, my team and me. He opened … the … the Gates, all of them … and he died.” 

Kakashi’s wheels are turning and he swallows thickly before he opts for a hand on Gai’s shaking shoulder. Gai collapses on top of him and covers him whole. He doesn’t know if he wants to breathe again anyway and there’s a thickness on his tongue that keeps him silent, as he struggles to find a way to get air into his lungs once again. 

“I thought dad is safe! I thought he’d never have to go out of the village!”, Gai sobs now. “He was a Genin!” 

And Kakashi knows, he knows so well. It’s why everyone looks down on Gai and Dai and … it makes him freeze up. Because it’s always this village and their stupid villagers, hating on them and on him. They might be right about his dad and about Kakashi himself but Gai and Dai are good, hardworking people. Way better than those idiots making fun of them. It’s unfair and he doesn’t want this, doesn’t like this reality one bit! It’s unfair, is what it is. 

Gai clutches his already wet shirt, and cries into his hair and mask and there’s too much Gai in his space but he lets Gai have what he needs for now. If it’s this, then he’ll try and stay still for another hour or so. Call it stealth training or endurance if someone asks. 

He shudders. 

He’s still ten, and Gai? Gai is twelve, without a dad, without a mom and with a lot of people who don’t like him much.   
Reminds Kakashi of himself, five years ago. 

They stay like that for longer than an hour; Kakashi’s muscles have long since given up on trying to stay rigid and it’s easier to breathe if he can focus his entire strength on lifting up his chest and Gai on top of him. 

Gai doesn’t say anything, just cries. At one point he lets go and rolls off of Kakashi. 

“Do you need anything”, Kakashi asks, quietly as to not disturb the bubble of silence they formed. 

Gai shakes his head and continuous staring at the ceiling. Kakashi follows his gaze, unseeing, unfeeling. He ignores the stench of blood in the air, the feeling of the red liquid on his feet and clothes, on his hands and face. He smiles. He doesn’t know how to cook curry. 

“I’m sorry”, he says, whispers, and closes his eyes. 

  
______

  
  
He’s eleven when he finds himself on a mission with his team.   
His first Jonin mission and the first mission he’s officially leading without interference of their sensei. 

Kakashi fails. 

He fails so hard, it’s exceptional, really. 

They still accomplish the mission directive, burn the bridge down with a ferocity Kakashi has lacked, in both - the mission itself, and being a team-leader.   
He doesn’t say anything on their way back. There’s nothing in his mind, a calm blankness. 

He doesn’t think anything he could say would make sense. 

He doesn’t say anything when Minato tugs him in for the night, when Kushina brings him soup, when Rin stays and moves into bed with him, seeking comfort in his smaller, younger frame. 

She clings to him and he likes to pretend that she needs it more than he does. 

All he can see is Obito, without his left eye (burning in Kakashi’s eye socket now, burning his brain out from the inside - he laughs at that and it’s a strange sound in the middle of the night. Sounds more like a broken sob. Pathetic), blood clinging to his face and hair and body, dripping onto his mattress as he sits on the bedside, positively soaking his blanket. 

Kakashi doesn’t blink when he looks up at the lone disappointed eye, screaming at him to say something, anything.   
Rin winces in her sleep, clutching his chest and hair. 

He doesn’t fight her hard hands on his mask when she whimpers and Obito’s eye judges him for it. 

It’s been 3 days since Obito died and he hasn’t uttered a single word. It’s funny, because they try so hard, everyone. Gai, Kushina, Minato … even Rin in her helpless grief. 

He’s all she has now and he knows this. Obito might have been Kakashi’s rival but he was also Rin’s very best friend, her childhood companion, her first worry. 

Now it’s only Kakashi who’s left.   
Stupid, idiot Kakashi who’s never been good for anyone. Why are they always leaving? They had finally made peace, Obito and him, only to be torn apart by his stupid, idiot mistakes. 

He laughs again, and again. Until Rin rouses, and touches his hot cheeks beneath the fabric. 

Minato comes in next. He feels more than hears anything because all he can do is laugh at the ridiculous situation he finds himself in, with the burning eye in his head and it hurts so fucking much take it outtakeitouttakeitout Take It Out!

“Kakashi-kun!”, Rin screams then, tries to shove his hands away from his face and comes back with bloody fingers. Minato forces his forearms to his sides and screams over Kakashi’s laughter. Kakashi doesn’t really hear anything. Truth be told, he can’t even see much anymore, it’s all a bit of a blur. 

There’s a red-headed streak in his line of vision now. Kushina? Probably. Yes.   
He thinks back to their one-sided conversation earlier. How she’s going to take time off to help him adjust with the eye. How she’ll teach him how to deal with foreign chakra and how they’re going to make this fine. 

Obito is judging him quietly, from the other side now. He’s leaning against the window sill, effectively blocking the moonlight from coming in. 

Kakashi thinks that he needs to get the eye out, now, give it back. Give it back and be done with it. He wants to die, he really wants to die right now. Shit, he thought nothing would ever hurt so much, he can’t breathe, can’t get past the pain in his chest, his heart is giving out, he knows itheknowshe’lldiefinally—

Kakashi faintly feels the black out coming, sees the dark spots in his blurry vision.   
He probably shouldn’t be so glad.  
  


______  
  


  
He does not leave the psych ward of the hospital for a long few weeks. At least until Minato tells him about Rin, about a mission she was given and the absence of any information containing her whereabouts. She’s been missing for four days, missing in Rock territory. 

The funny thing is, Kakashi thinks, that she didn’t get abducted by Konoha’s long time enemy, not after the war. Not after they won with Obito’s sacrifice. (He missed the announcement, missed a lot of the celebration and the fireworks. He isn’t really sad he did.) 

He doesn’t know he’s running until he gets to the wall of the outer village, jumps over it without much difficulty and suddenly finds himself on the run to his most important mission. He promised. He promised, he has to find her, he has to get her back, she’s all that’s left of the good of their team. (Kakashi needs Rin more than she needs his protection.)   
When he finds her, in a cave close to Mist, close to even worse enemy territory, he kills the guards without thinking. They don’t stick around for reinforcements to show up but he knows, smells, something is off, not just about Rin. It was too easy, too many things don’t add up. He can’t even summon his pack in this odd-smelling illusion-concert. 

It’s on the run when Rin breaks down crying, clutching her stomach and Kakashi doesn’t know what to do when he sees the seal, the finely tuned, simple strokes of black ink and blood. It looks like a containment seal and it probably is one but there’s a switch. A fucking trigger. 

Rin will die. 

Kakashi doesn’t know enough about seals to save her, doesn’t know what to do, he just needs to get her home. To Minato-sensei and Kushina. Kushina is from freaking Uzushio-Gakure, Minato is the Yellow Flash, they will know what to do, they’ll save Rin. 

Kakashi is too slow. 

Reinforcements finally catch up to them, to Kakashi and Rin, to the poor remains of a once proud Team Yellow Flash. 

“You have to leave!”, he screams over the sounds of yet another Water Dragon, “Get back to the village, get back!” 

Rin shakes her head. “Kakashi-, I will die. Please!”, _don’t sacrifice yourself for me._

She clutches his left forearm as he pushes up his headband, facing the few dozen enemy nin. ANBU from Mist. 

Kakashi hates that he won’t be enough. “Go!”, he says, quietly, before his right hand lights up with the bright blue chakra and the sound of A Thousand Birds. “Before I can’t keep them on their toes any longer.” 

He shakes her off and starts his faster than lightning run, breath catching in his lungs as he finds his first target and the next, until there’s someone in front of him, someone he didn’t see (impossible), didn’t feel, didn’t foresee. He can’t move out of the way now, his momentum carrying him faster than his mind can follow, even with the sharingan — 

She’s right there, right around his arm, her ribs cutting into the pale flesh of his abused skin, her heart still pumping in his right hand before it’s stuttering, outside of her body. He missed the spine by a good centimetre but caught the left lung. 

It’s a small heart, smaller than the big ones of his fully grown enemies of course but also smaller than some children’s he’s squeezed out. Maybe the size of Rin’s fists, maybe a bit smaller. She had big hands for a girl her age but she always carried them with grace, used even the last particle of her body to help him and Obi- 

Shit. 

She wheezes, in front of him, coughs up blood. A bit of it lands on his face and hair and mask. Well. He doesn’t much care about the mask. 

“Kakashi-“, she whispers. “Kakashi!”

Obito will be so, so, so angry with him. What a best friend he is. Not even two months into his promise, such a failure. (He really wants to laugh but there is _no air_ ) 

Obito will kill him. Probably. Kakashi deserves the killing part. He just killed Rin, he just killed Rin, he just killedRinRinRinRin- 

Kakashi killed Rin. 

There’s a distinct lack of air where he’s standing. A lack of oxygen, of Rin. 

Her dark brown eyes have gone pale, the irises unseeing, dead. 

He let’s go of the heart in his hand, more out of habit and instinct than anything else. Takes out his arm. ( _All the way buried inside her, you monster, couldn’t even kill her with mercy, could you_ ) 

She falls, but it doesn’t look at all spectacular. Maybe because he’s moving to catch up to her. 

He lands on top of her legs, but he never even feels how his left arm breaks, caught in between him and her bony hips.   
He just hears a crack before he is out like a light. 

  
______

It’s a shame, really, when he wakes up. 

When he opens his eyes. 

When he reaches the state of understanding consciousness and comprehends. Sees. Remembers the hand around a palpating heart, constricting muscle, slick blood burning away through his fingertips. 

He’s fried Rin’s heart, her fucking heart. How does he end up killing his only good friend, the only safe haven, the teammate he dared to accept after all this time, when all he wanted was protecting her? How is it, that he’s possibly the worst person, the lowest of all the scum in this world? He tried!

Maybe there’s no escape from his true nature. How can you run from what’s inside you? 

Kushina is fast asleep on the only visitor’s chair. The whole room stinks of desinfectant, of Morphium and sweat, fear, worry, of take-out Ramen and deodorant. 

He can’t even lift his little finger, but he really wants to take Kushina’s hands. He wants, needs her to hug him, ground him, before he sees Rin, before Obito appears and judges him, kills him hopefully. 

It’s not even a second later until he notices the small figure sitting on the window sill, eyeing him distantly.  
“What’s with you and always, always disappointing me, Kakashi-kun?”, she asks and smiles. “There’s not a single good thing about you but you’re the only one alive now, aren’t you?” 

It’s not Rin, though, it’s Obito. He turns back into his own body, lets the henge go. Or is it a henge when you’re a ghost and probably make it a habit of shapeshifting regularly? Kakashi wouldn’t know. 

“You’re so pathetic. I asked one thing of you, one thing. On my dying bed. Under the boulder meant for you!”, his teammate gets louder and louder, and he would’ve told him off if Kushina were actually able to hear him but she never did and won’t hear Obito now. “You’re so much worse than scum, you know that? You need to hear it, you asshole, you little shit!” 

Kakashi breathes, tries to. Has trouble with it and stutters over the words escaping his covered lips. “I-“, he starts, swallows around the tube in his throat. “I’m sorry”, he thinks and coughs up a mere imitation of those words. 

And it sounds like the pathetic attempt it is. 

He whispers, prays and pleads to Obito, repeats the simple excuses at least a hundred times until Kushina wakes, instantly almost.   
She gasps over the blinking eyes, bleary confusion and worry written all over her expressive face. 

Obito laughs, really loudly. “Fucking idiot, thinks I’ll forgive him for breaking the one promise he’s ever made to me. You’re worthless, you know that?” 

He nods, simply. “Please ... Obito ... I know ...”, he swallows thickly again, breathes in through his nose and closes his eyes for a second. 

Kushina’s never seen him talk to ghosts, he thinks, but Minato must have told her, probably has. 

She stares intently when he turns his gaze on her again. 

“Kakashi-kun”, is all she says. “Kakashi-kun.” 

And it sounds like the prayer he’s whispered before, continues to whisper over his hoarse throat and the sound of several machines beeping in the background. It’s not his voice, though, it’s his thoughts, his never ending inner whispering ghost, stating the pathetic excuses again and again, apologizes for the end of the world. 

“Please don’t do this, Kakashi”, she says suddenly and there are tears in her eyes. He can hear them in her voice while he’s watching the ceiling spin, his fingers digging into the flesh around Obito’s eye again. 

He smiles before she can scream for a nurse and proceeds to dig into the bone. It’s little effort when you’re a lightning affinity and there’s chakra at your disposal. 

It’s a bit more complicated when you’re apparently chakra-exhausted to the point of being unable to lift an eye lid but still manage to somehow get both your hands onto your face and start digging into it until your nails break, all in the course of a few seconds until stronger hands grip your wrists and there is a lot of screaming involved. 

He doesn’t really listen. There’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, no one who truly understands, who’s been in this situation. 

All they want is the perfect little soldier, isn’t it?   
If they won’t let him die, and if Obito won’t shut up, he’ll just become that. The brainless, mindless, emotionless, fearless machine, with oceans of blood on his hands. 

There’s little effort involved in killing your inner self. Less than he’d thought, really. He’s expected to have a lot more to do than just drown himself in the blood already up to his neck.   
  


______

  
  
It’s weeks before he sees Minato again, a month after he turned twelve and Minato is there, holding him close when he walks out of psych. Apologizes to him for not being there, for having too much to do, for leaving his only remaining student to fend for himself.   
Kushina is behind him, hugging the two of them. 

Kakashi doesn’t know what to do. 

He doesn’t know what they want from him, hadn’t known in psych when he filled out evaluation after evaluation. 

He feels useless. Like a failure. Because he is alive while Rin and Obito aren’t and Obito lets him know, every step on the way to his home, how much he sucks. How much of an idiot he is. 

He still doesn’t know what to say to Obito’s taunting words, so he just stares straight ahead. He doesn’t see the concerned exchange of looks his legal guardians share, doesn’t see the way Minato bites on his lip to swallow back a lump of horrible thoughts. 

He feels the hair ruffle, the heavy hand on his head and doesn’t want to fight it, even if it’s undeserved. 

“They said you’re fine material for ANBU, Kashi-kun”, Minato starts behind him, proudly and boisterously voicing his thoughts. “Would you like to try out for me when I become Hokage?” 

Kakashi shrugs. He doesn’t really know if he’ll be any use but he sure wants to try for his sensei. He wants to be on the Hokage guard, and he wants to protect the one precious family he has left. So he answers, dutifully. “Of course, sensei, whatever you want me to do” and smiles up at his big brother. 

He closes his eyes and doesn’t see the way Minato’s heart breaks right there, in the middle of the street in broad daylight — doesn’t see Kushina’s unusual worried gaze, surprisingly empathetic in a way none of them would’ve thought she’s even capable of. 

He smiles and turns around to walk back home, ignores bird lady and his father, ignores Obito. 

When they’re home, when he’s offered to make dinner, got turned down and they ended up ordering Ichiraku’s, when Minato makes him stay in the living room for the evening, he pretends he doesn’t care. He pretends they could bear it if he weren’t there anymore, if he were to just leave. 

He pretends they would be perfectly fine without him. 

He imagines a world without himself in it; imagines a world with Obito and Rin still alive. A world in which he’s died under that god forsaken boulder, and it’s a nice little daydream. Everyone would be happier and for the most part alive.  
  
He swallows thickly when Minato tucks him close and they just sit there, the three of them, Kushina and Minato embracing him on the couch. 

They would be so much better off with Rin or Obito or both of them here. 

He tries to hold back the tears, but there’s still a wetness on his cheeks he wishes away - it means weakness and dishonoring your teammates and it’s against rule 25 in the shinobi rule book ...   
Obito’s laughter doesn’t even reach his ears but he can imagine it perfectly. 

And if he were to turn around, turn his head just a bit to see the entrance to the kitchen, he would see his father, standing in the doorway all disappointed and huffing over his pathetic appaerance.

Not that Sakumo was any better in the months leading up to his suicide. 

This is how Kakashi tries to breathe.   
This is how Kakashi falls apart. 

Why is he so pathetic? 

Why do Minato and Kushina care so much? 

He doesn’t want them to mourn him, he doesn’t want them to care but they do ... how ... how do people make other people stop caring? 

“Why ... why are you still here?”, he thinks of asking, whispers it over the voices in his head. “Why are you wasting your time on me?” 

Both of them stay silent for a long minute. 

“Kakashi”, Minato starts, slowly, as if he still isn’t sure what Kakashi asked exactly. “Kakashi, why would we be wasting our time on you?” 

“Is it because of the village? Because I can become an asset quicker this way?”, Kakashi asks, oblivious to Kushina’s tremor. “Please, please, you should ... you should stop caring. Not about the village ... - I mean the ... me. I meant me.” 

“Kashi-kun”, Minato says. 

“It’s fine, I can get better on my own. The village needs you way more than it needs me. You’re going to be Hokage and Lady Kushina ... I ... I have no right to hold you here, to demand your attention”, he answers and nods to himself. This seems like a good thing to say. 

“Kakashi, stop”, Minato all but whisper-shouts at him, grasping his arm in a tight hold. Kakashi would’ve shouted out but bites his lip in the last possible second. “You-“

Kushina lifts his small frame and sets him back down in her lap. He shouldn’t be so easy to manhandle ... but he is still small for his age. “Kakashi”, she breathes into his ear. “You’re not a burden, you’re our’s. Our son, child, in all but blood.” 

He what now. 

His brain sort of short-circuited and he doesn’t actually remember the next few moments, doesn’t cut it, doesn’t hear Minato’s sad attempt of comforting his shivering frame on Kushina’s lap. 

  
______  
  
  


“I can’t reassign him”, Minato says too loudly in their kitchen, later. Just as Kakashi closes the front door quietly. “He’s barely able to eat, much less take care of himself ...”

He doesn’t really know if he’s supposed to hear this conversation out but it seems important, not just for himself but his legal guardians as well. 

“He needs a break”, Kushina agrees. “He needs something to focus on ...”

“I can’t just hand him to another team, make him train under someone else. He is a Jounin now ... ANBU would have his back 24/7 when we cannot watch him. It’s only temporarily, only until he has finished his mission and if he wants to stay to become my guard then I will let him. It’s the best way to keep him alive and breathing, to give him some meaning and friends maybe.” 

Kakashi swallows thickly. 

He doesn’t want to be useless so he will definitely agree to sensei’s proposal when the time comes but he makes them worry so much, it’s almost impossible to bear the strong feelings a few rooms away. 

They won’t let him out of their sight if he continues this. But he can’t stop himself — when he turns around to go back to bed, Obito watches him, pitifully. “They’ve been talking about this since they moved in with you, you know?” 

  
______

  
  
He is twelve years old when he gets promoted to ANBU. 

  
______

  
  
Kakashi sits on top of their roof and wonders. He has been watching Kushina for a few hours now, ever since Minato left this morning.   
He likes this mission, he thinks. There is no blood being shed, he is inside the village walls. And Kushina would be more than overqualified for an attack on her life. She would probably defend Kakashi if it came down to it - but following her around undetected is actually fun. 

Sometimes, they meet up with Mikoto and he gets to wave at Mikoto’s son who … - strangely enough - spotted him on their third or fourth time coming over. 

More often than not Kakashi has Obito talking his ear off when he gets to sit down somewhere, just watching Kushina and surveilling their surroundings. Rin comes and goes, sitting and talking or just watching Kushina with him.   
They have their good and their bad days and he hasn’t found any pattern indicating a certain mood so far. 

As he waits for Kushina to finish her tea, he can feel another presence next to him and doesn’t have to turn to find Obito. 

Obito is throwing around insults but nothing as malicious as in those first few months after he got him and Rin killed.   
It’s a small relief, even though he’d obsiously prefer to have the real deal alive and well but things turned out this way and they have to deal with the aftermath after all. 

He turns his head slightly but doesn’t say anything. Obito never needs a ‚hello‘ or a ‚good bye‘. He just starts vomiting words.

„You’re so uptight all the time, Bakashi, you know that?“, Obito points out. „Kushina wouldn’t mind your presence down there.“ 

Kakashi just shrugs. 

He finds that he never has to actually voice his thoughts with his ghosts around. They know what he’s thinking and he still hasn’t come to a conclusion, doesn’t know if he likes it or resents this. 

His mission directive states that Kushina cannot - as in absolutely not - find out about his following her around. Hound is to stay with and protect her, out of her reach. If she doesn’t know, their enemies won’t notice until it is too late in case of an emergency and that is the whole point of his mission. 

And he tries his absolute best in this. His nerves are on edge, his entire being is primed on watching his legal guardian, as close to a mother as he ever had, and he cannot fail this time. 

Hound will not - as in absolutely not - fail this very first ANBU-mission. 

  
______

  
  
His village is burning. 

He is just jumping up to join with the forces in the frontline, trying to take down the Kyuubi no Kitsune with sheer numbers, when he gets hit by a body and finds himself rolling down a hill, landing too soft, with his body only mildly hurting from all the turmoil. 

There shouldn’t be snow, no less white and freshly fallen, not with the fires, not with the summer just turning on them. It’s the middle of October in Fire Country, there should definitely not be any snow. 

He turns, groaning quietly and looks at the broken mask of a stranger. „What the hell“, is all he can say before said stranger tries to strangle him to death. The lack of oxygen doesn’t hinder him, doesn’t even make him blink, as he tries to use chidori.   
His attacker hisses angrily at him but doesn’t jump or let go, and Kakashi doesn’t have any qualms about killing someone to get out on top. It’s his job, isn’t it? 

He stabs, tries to get between the ribs of this stranger, but for some reason, he misses. It goes right through. 

Ah. 

Some kind of jutsu.   
Maybe a clone.   
Something really shitty. 

It’s all that he can register before his lights turn dim and the lack of air makes his head fuzzy. 

He feels the angry laughter of his attacker more than hears it. But he can’t — he can’t die now, not with the village getting attacked, not with Minato and Kushina still out there, still fighting, he has to …   
he has …   
he has to …   
get — 

  
get back. 

  
______

There is a lot of ground to cover before he can even begin to start worrying about the village. 

“Bakashi, what’s with your attitude today? You’re, like, still sleeping and it’s noon, you idiot.”

Obito is persistent in unnerving him but he can’t really hold it against the older teenager. He is still huddled inside the few blankets he found in one of his smaller carry-on scrolls that - thank kami - he had on himself when the fight happened. 

“Let him sleep, Obito. Minato-sensei is out hunting and there’s no reason to rush now, anyway. The village is fine, we’re fine, Kakashi is sick. Let him sleep.” 

Always the peaceful one, Rin, Kakashi thinks as his eyelids drop again. He doesn’t quite sleep, doesn’t quite hear but feel his sensei coming back. And the bright, yellow mental image of his charka, the familiarity of the smell, the warm touch on his neck is all it takes to pull him into the quiet slumber he needs for a quick recovery. 

  
Only a few hours later, when it’s already dark and he has slept most of the day apparently, does he realize that he is covered in thicker blankets and moving, on someone’s back probably. There’s the jumping sensation when they are barely held back by gravity and the whisper of trees and their leafs from all sides. 

He smells the musky scent of his sensei and decides that there is no reason to fight back now. He is safe. It’s comfortable, nice, he likes this and he really, really does not want to leave this cocoon of chakrawire and blankets, all wrapped up in a nice package - strapped to his sensei’s back. 

“Sensei …”, he murmurs, feeling comforted by the fact that his face is still in one place, that he can talk, that his mouth doesn’t feel like ash anymore. “How … how many days have I been out?” 

There’s a huff and a bright sparkle in Minato’s eyes when he turns his head just a bit to look back at him. “Kakashi-kun, good morning! It’s been almost two weeks since I found you somewhere far off in snow country. You’re okay now but you’ve been out of it for most of it.” 

“Ah”, is all Kakashi can bring himself to say, so he slumps back and drops his heavy head on familiar shoulders. “That’s okay. You’re here. Obito and Rin are here”, he murmurs, heavy eyelids dropping already again. “Everyone is safe.” 

“Bakashi must’ve been really sick if he missed Rin and me”, Obito grunts from behind and Kakashi suppresses a barely visible smile. 

Minato nods. “He was. Not anymore.” 

Kakashi feels familiar heat rush to his face and struggles a bit to keep his eyes open. He remembers now, that he is a burden to his team if he pretends to be sick any longer. “Sensei … I can walk, you don’t have to carry me!” 

Minato huffs, Kakashi feels it through the lifting of his upper body. “You will walk again through the gates of Konoha, alright? But now you will sleep. We will look for a resting place in a few hours while you’re going to take a nap. I’ll wake you should anything happen to us.“ 

Kakashi nods, still feeling the warmth in his cheeks. “Okay”, he murmurs and there isn’t much to disagree with when Minato-sensei feels so comfortable, when the blankets cover his wiry, growing frame without much effort and lull him back to sleep with a warmth that had been foreign to him for so long. 

“Please, wake me up tomorrow, I want to be there for …” Kushina and your son.

He doesn’t finish the sentence but Minato still nods.   
  


______

  
  
Kakashi wakes up when they are meters away from the gate — or what‘s left of it. There is no gate, just rocks of different size, rubble, earth, an odd part of a cadaver here and there. 

There is no sound when he lifts his heavy gaze to see his companions. He hears nothing at all, not a thing. This can‘t be, this isn‘t true, no -

He sees the destroyed village he fought for, the bodies splayed around, and his team is gone, his team is not here anymore!   
They were just here? He was with them?   
What the fuck, he thinks and really means it for the very first time in his life. He‘s never meant anything as much as this because, what. The freaking. Fuck. 

No. 

His sensory intake is non-existent at this point so he sees more than feels Gai‘s arms around him - coincidentally the only person he‘d allow to do this.

And when his hearing comes back to him, all he can hear is laughter, so loud and insane, at first he doesn‘t even realize it is his own. 

  
______  
  
  


He can hear Obito laugh as he realizes he’s failed another time. Of course he failed. 

  
______  
  
  


He is 13 years old when he finds out that his legal guardians, the Fourth Hokage and his wife, have been killed.   
He also finds out that his ghosts aren’t real. 

There isn‘t much more apart from his speedy stunt in psych (two weeks, three days and five hours but who is counting). He never sees the baby (they only told him he‘s alive and well. Naruto.), and he is not allowed to interact with him. This isn‘t much of a surprise considering he went missing in the middle of the worst catastrophe his village has seen in all its many years. 

But they can‘t really spare him. Not when they lost about 2 thirds of their manpower and he‘s ANBU. This is a secret, there cannot be another war, the Kyuubi never got out. Minato died suddenly of an infection, Kushina as well as their child died as well, all very suddenly (couldn’t have the enemy know Naruto is alive, not with both of his parents gone, no protection because Kakashi is a fuckup and doesn’t know how to care for babies). Whatever. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. (Someone suggested an impostor for the pair, the idea got lost and nobody had the time to even try.) 

They prescribed him an antipsychotic drug and some antidepressant, which makes the entire thing a bit better, he can sleep at night sometimes.  
He thinks they barely work but if it‘ll make them feel better about the entire thing, he‘ll might as well take the pills. 

Gai takes time off, in the first few days at home, cooks him food (awful, but he can‘t really object), draws him a bath, makes him drink and train. (Training makes him feel better but he is so exhausted nowadays, he can barely manage to do his first set of katas on a bad day. Gai knows this and considering he is going on missions right after the traumatic events that affected the entire village and considering he‘s apparently been schizophrenic his entire life without one person being the wiser, ... well.)   
Minato‘s once looked into his ghost-seeing-thing — the library had barely any information on mental health, so there wasn‘t any progress being made and he kind of accepted the entire thing as long as Kakashi didn‘t freak out during a mission (of course he never did). 

So having a label of sorts ... doesn‘t sit well with him but it isn’t to bad. He doesn’t care much about it anyway. His ghosts aren‘t real, they don‘t despise him. That‘s nice. 

  
When he visits the memorial stone for the first time in ages and spots a dark figure in the trees, he doesn‘t think it‘s too odd. It is odd but maybe it‘s just one of the people that have gotten killed during the attack? 

He shrugs and forgets about it until he finds food going missing, his milk (half full yesterday) empty, books moved from the shelf to another space in his tiny apartment, tea leafs he never uses in his trash. 

His brain screams at him to listen, to tell someone but if he does he‘ll be benched for maybe a year or two.   
They won‘t believe him, and he doesn‘t believe himself? 

He loses time sometimes. He gets up in the morning, and has no recollection of what has transpired during the first 5 hours of his day. In front of the memorial stone, when he wants to stay for a few minutes and loses an entire day apparently. Sometimes he catches Gai looking at him worriedly. 

It should probably concern him a bit more than it does.

And that‘s his Life After. Mission, sleep, rinse, repeat. 

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I hope I didn't trigger anyone, I hope you guys stay safe, and I'm terribly sorry for my lack of good writing, punctuation and for any great mistakes I've made.  
> I've written parts of this story for so long, I thought I had more writing to do for it today but I somehow might have finished this, like, a month ago. And totally forgot about it. It's 3 in the morning now, I started editing 3 hours ago and leave a kudo or a comment or both if you liked that thing up there. 
> 
> Also don't tell me about whatever grave mistake I made, I'll gladly be oblivious until I read this again. And cringe a lot probably. :)


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